Subject:
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Lobster Bisque (was: Did animals have rights before we invented rights?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 6 Jul 2001 17:34:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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1252 times
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Ok, I noticed something odd while mulling over the topic on my way home last
night... While I admitted elsewhere that I agree to a certain degree of
immorality for eating meat, but that it was negligible, I'm actually not
sure that's the case-- at least not always. Here we go. My position
restated. In considerably more detail.
I personally don't like lobster, but I *have* been around when it gets
cooked, eaten, etc. I get to see them alive, then I get to see them die,
then I get to watch them get eaten. And *every* time I've seen this,
*that's* when I've felt the immorality I speak of. Was it immoral of me to
have allowed the lobsters to be killed, solely for our dining pleasure?
Sure. But not so immoral that I would actively do something about it.
Compare that to my eating a steak. I never saw it alive. I never saw it
killed. And the small chunk of meat in front of me bears little resemblence
to a cow, or even any sort of living being. Hence, eating it inspires not
even the slightest bit of moral or immoral reation in me. It's an amoral
act. But when I *think* about it, *that's* when the immorality hits me. With
the lobster, the fact that it was a living being was thrust in my face--
even being simply *served* the lobster forces my realization because it
still LOOKS like a lobster, versus the steak, which has little or no
resemblence to a cow. And likewise, were I served lobster bisque, it would
appear in no way like a lobster, and I would probably simply eat it without
giving any moral assignment to my action.
So, by comparison, one might intuit that I meant "it's only immoral when you
think about it". Now, that's KINDA true, but not really. Let's push it to an
extreme.
Let's suppose I unknowingly stole something. I saw a TV sitting in a field
and I took it. Little did I know that the field was actually *owned*
property, and so was the TV. Was the act immoral? No. I didn't intend wrong,
nor was there really any way of determining whether or not it was owned or
not. And for those of you who would argue that "How could you possibly
assume the TV was unowned?!", just pretend it wasn't a TV. It was a really
cool-looking rock.
However, this is a different situation than had I been aware that the land
was owned, or even that the TV/rock was owned. Because if I simply "didn't
think" about it, while the actual act was performed *amorally*, it would
still be an *immoral* act, solely because I was *capable* of realizing its
immorality. It's not *as* immoral, but still immoral.
Compared back to the steak example, I *know* the steak came from a living
being. If I didn't, then my action would be completely amoral, from my
viewpoint. Now, that doesn't mean that *after* I find out that it *was*
living, that the act is suddenly judged to be *immoral*. The act is
completely without moral implication. It just happened to be "bad", not
"immoral". Hence, feeling remorse isn't implying immorality.
The real issue (as I've been re-stating many times so far) is when one is
able to acknowledge that performing an action will conflict with the desires
of another being. Even if those desires aren't actually *there*, a moral
valuation may take place (1). So the ability to be subject to moral
judgement comes with your ability to recognize others' desires and realize
that those desires have value.
Now, I think that the realization of others' desires posessing value is in
fact (at least in humans-- there *may* be other ways, I just don't know what
they'd be) self-reflection. It's the act of knowing that your *own* desires
have value, and just so, *others'* desires have value. Hence, it's a degree
of personification.
As such, it's entirely natural to associate higher levels of value with
things that are more like *us*. The more aware we are that something is
*like* us, the more likely we are to associate that thing's desires with our
own, and place a more equal value on them to the values of our own desires.
So, the problem with this of course is that it denies things like "universal
inherent rights". We'll only acknowledge your rights if you prove to be
human-like. And even then, the more like *me* you are, the more rights I'll
acknowledge for you. Is that fair? Probably not. But when it comes right
down to it, as I'm sure you've guessed from my stated position, there is no
"fair" anyway. In the world of the truly universal, no such concepts as
"fair", "moral", or "rights" exist.
$.02,
DaveE
(1) Suppose that you broke into a house, stole a TV, and later found out
that nobody owned the house. Was the act immoral? I'd say so-- because you
*thought* (assumedly) that you *were* being immoral, because you *thought*
that the owners of the TV existed, and that they wouldn't want you to steal
their TV.
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